Faces in the Ice
by DreamEscape16
Summary: Post-Winter Soldier. They're both wounded by the past, carry scars of ageless pain and in search for new existence. A story about Steve helping Bucky remember, and in return the reformed assassin helps his best friend heal from old wounds.
1. Chapter 1

**Faces in the Ice**

**All characters belong to Marvel Comics**

**I own nothing.**

* * *

It was humid, surly summer evening, the golden light of the restless city landed strongly in depth of his focused pale azure eyes, and brushed over the chiseled lines of youthful skin. Restless and entrapped in a division of choice, the Soviet assassin, code name the Winter Soldier stood on the curb adjacent to the hospital.

He was stoic and allowed his luminous eyes to drift around the back parking lot, watching ambulances drive out as flashing red lights reflected over the shimmering metal plates of his bionic left arm.

The Winter Soldier waited in the shadows. He was patient and calculated his methods of infiltration. He knew SHIELD wanted to apprehend him-he was a key piece of HYDRA and he was entering dangerous territory. He parted his full lips, and drew out a shaky exhale before thumping his heavy boots forward, avoiding traffic, and slipping behind parked vehicles. He moved quickly, tipping his hat to hide his face, and causally entered through a doorway.

Searching, his sharp blue eyes scanned over the closed doors of the ICU, he passed nurses, MP Officers guarding doors, and stretchers with patients strapped down. He blanched at the sigh of a young golden-haired boy quivering with folder of his chest x-rays resting over his bloodied torso. Biting hard on his lower lip, the Soldier paused in his strides, and gazed down at the injured child. He stared at thick shard of glass lodged in the boy's stomach, involuntary craned his neck and waited for a nurse wearing pink scrubs to pass him.

"I'm not going to hurt you, kid." he whispered, struggling to spit out his words. It had been a long time since he'd talked. He narrowed his intent blue eyes down, gently looking at the distressed boy, watching tears slide of ashen skin. "Can you tell what hurts?" he asked, trying to sound human.

"My chest." the boy answered, wheezing for breath. The Soldier raked his eyes over the red tinge of chest muscle, noticing a few rib bones poking under pale skin. "I want my Bucky?"

"Bucky?" The Soldier asked, creasing his brows. His face became vacant. He withdrew a step back from the stretcher. "Who's Bucky?" he pressed, his voice cracking, looking directly into the boy's teary eyes.

"He's my friend." the boy answered, drawing out a pained breath. "He never leaves my side."

"Where is this Bucky?" he asked quietly, in a rather confused voice.

"He fell." the child sobbed, his blue eyes drifted to the floor. "I was holding on to him when they wheeled me in here. Bucky slipped out of my hand."

The Winter Soldier swallowed his HYDRA instilled pride and controlled emotions and spoke softly, "Your friend can't be too far." he lightly smirked; he extended his gloved hand and placed on the boy's shoulder. "I'll find your Bucky."

The boy's eyes lit up, "He's a brown bear with a red star on his chest." he stammered out, wincing in pain.

"Brown bear. Red Star." The Winter Soldier repeated like a robot, he nodded sharply. He walked with methodical steps down the hall. He marched carelessly, his intimating, dark presence made people create a rift as he passed through doors while keeping his feral blue eyes locked on the floor. Then he stopped, and saw the bear on a top of a pile of linen. "Bucky." he growled in a low breath, staring at a nurse pushing the cart away. "Hey, don't move!" he hollered out, advancing closer.

Wearing a puzzled look on her face, the nurse turned around and met his intense ember of blue fire. "Can I help you with something?"

The Winter Solider pointed at the bear, glaring at her offensively. "The bear doesn't belong to you." he said with a menacing snarl emitting up his throat. "It belongs to a boy-I need to bring it back." he said with irritation, grinding his back teeth.

The nurse nodded, "Of course," she said quickly, and then grabbed the bear, and handed it back to him.

"Thank you." He said simply, backing away from her, and tucked the beat under his arm. He moved with fast paces to the location of the boy, and froze in his heavy steps, and watched two nurses wheel the stretcher to an elevator. "Wait!" he yelled out, grabbing their attention. He walked over to the side of the stretcher, staring at the boy who had an oxygen mask over his small face. He placed the bear close to his small arm. "I found Bucky." He smiled warmly, feeling his tensed and smooth jaw muscles loosen when the boy whispered a soft thank you to him.

Watching the boy disappear, behind the closing elevator, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black jacket, and continued his searched for the '_man on the bridge'_ ...Steve Rogers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

He lingered in the doorway like absent shadow, his electronic, pale blue eyes stared at the unconscious form of Steve Rogers resting in the fold of thin white cotton sheets, and an IV drip embedded and affixed in his right wrist. He shifted his gaze at the doctors finishing their nightly rounds, dragging their padded feet against the floor, holding clipboards and Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee.

The smell of brewed caffeine was intoxicating to inhale, it ebbed his senses as he watched them fade into the blearily hall light. He blinked, grasping his thoughts, not recognizing the different smells wavering around him, some scents felt strangely familiar-blood, sweat, sickness and death. He knew them all too well; it lulled him back into a state delirium, a crimson abyss with sadistic voices escaping from the dark cervices of his tortured mind.

He felt like he was literally standing on the edge, the ground beneath his boots crumbling into pieces, jostling the bones in his body, until he instinctively clasped the doorknob with his metal hand. He panted out heavy, ragged breaths, beads of feverish sweat dripping from his brow, and sliding over the edges of his full lips.

_The sum of your life is to serve us...Your life means nothing to us._

The Soldier heard the taunting voice creeping back into his ears, making him feel the hollow emptiness of his soul twist like spindling weaves of a spider's web, he clenched his knuckles into a tight fist, trying to speak the words, and fought to release the anguish welling inside of him. When he parted his lips, ghosting out a shaky exhale a murmur of pain went abound in the silence.

His pale face morphed into an ugly scowl, upper lip arched into a grimace. He squeezed his eyelids shut, muscles jerked as foggy black and white images emerged from the recesses of memory. Faces of nameless people, puddles of thick blood, and drifts of ice and snow covered with trails of tattered clothing, and a lifeless, cold body of a soldier- -a young dark haired man condemned to become a frozen captive of the winter.

He kept his eyes shut; the waver of his weakened body leaning against the door told his programmed mind to grasp the handle. The metallic strength of his fingers clutched on the door, as he pulled himself into the room. He needed to move closer and see the damage his enhanced strength and ruthless power left on the face that held so many memories, but his body stiffened and hesitated, "I can't..." he choked out the words he wanted to say. He withdrew an alarmed step back, biting on his lower lip and his body trembled with condemning fear.

" I want to remember you..." he whispered, his voice strained from exhaustion, and throat burned with raw coldness. "You said that you knew me...Is it true or just a lie?"

Feeling a wave of doubt crash against him, the Soldier took a deep breath and advanced closer to the bedside. He paused in his strides, and hovered over the motionless and sleeping, Steve Rogers. A thin blanket covered his heavy bandaged abdomen. He was breathing with strangled exhale, and his chest was rising and falling. His youthful, well-chiseled face was littered with dark bruises, yellow marks, and reddened welts. His lips split and still swollen from the ramming of knuckles scraping his mouth. There were a lot a cuts and scrapes, and his skin was a hue of ashen.

"I did this to you?" The Soldier gasped in horror, his darken blue embers welled with smoldering tears of inward remorse. "They made me do it." he growled, feral and abysmal. "They ordered me to hurt you, to kill you." he released a labored sigh, wrenching his eyes away from Steve's battered face.

Shaking, the Soldier encompassed his metal hand over his lips, shaking his head while lines of wetness fell steadily over the sharp, pronounced curvatures of his face. "I want you to say that name again...Call me by that name...please. I want to know who I am?» he gritted, placing his hand on Steve's arm. "I don't remember your name...but I remember hearing you scream in the falling snow." He pulled a chair up to the bed, and sat down; caressing his fingers over Steve's bruised knuckles. "I'm staying here for the night, since I have no home to go back too."

He sat down and lifted the blanket to Steve's exposed chest. It felt so vaguely familiar, almost like he had done it many of times. "I'll watch your back."

With every tear that strayed down his face, the Soldier's pensive eyes became lighter, almost like shimmery crystals of sky blue.

His long, disheveled curtains of hair fell in front of his piercing, heavy gaze as he removed his baseball cap, tossing to the floor, and lowered his head into a silent gesture of grievance. "I'm sorry." he sobbed out a sharp mumble, coiling his fingers tighter around Steve's wrist. He lifted his watery eyes, and leveled a shattering gaze to Steve's relaxed face, ruffled, spiked golden hair.

The color of Steve's roots brought back a simple memory; it was enough from his lips to crack a small smile. "I remember a skinny kid with your hair...He was ill and alone. I think he had a friend...a good friend who gave him a home when he had nothing."

The Soldier reached out his real hand, and threaded his fingers through Steve's hair. "I have nothing..." he whispered with a hardened breath.»I don't even have a friend. I have missions, but when I look at you...I feel home."

He kept his blue eyes locked on Steve, feeling a calming sense that soothed his displaced soul enough for him to slowly drift into a peaceful slumber, and his metal hand stayed on top of Steve's large hand the rest of the night.

He felt safe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

He awoke suddenly with tension rippling through his muscles and he felt his heart speeding a few notches against his rib cage. He instinctively gripped the cold skin of wrist. The serrated plates of his alloy bionic arm hissed and contorted. He twisted the attackers arm, and listened to the bones crack against his metal fingers. His icy blue eyes glared at the dark shadows with feral expression. His lips curved into a fierce scowl, and blood pumped faster through his veins. He wanted to hear the bones break against his hold. He wanted to hear the pain escape from the throat of invade of his domain. Something prevented him from falling back into the darkness of the void of HYDRA.

He felt the familiar _warmth._

"Hey," Steve whispered in a hoarse, weakened voice. He stared at the Soldier with hazy blue eyes coated with tears. Then he grimaced and clenched his teeth and grabbed blindly for his friend. The Soldier blanched against the chair, his blue eyes welled with confusion. He stared with blank and with unreadable expressions at the First Avenger...The man he was ordered to terminate by the words of Alexander Pierce. He looked suddenly alarmed and a bit frightened. When Steve lifted up his limp hand, he scuffed all feeling away. " Bucky..." He paused for a short breath. "It's good to see you again, pal." His voice sounded so weak, so drained that it was barely audible.

The Winter Soldier was struggled to speak to him, his stomach knotted and constricted underneath his dark shirt, and beads of sweat rolled over his graven muscles. He felt cornered like a wounded animal in a spotlight. His heart sped a few notches against his rib cage, and his throat closed up when he cast his eyes over the lines of stitches on Steve's pale cheek, and the bruises that littered his face. He looked almost battered to death and his left eye had been swollen shut, but hazy blue still managed to shimmer against the shadow. He gasped for a heavy intake a breath; his emotions were becoming unstable, as he violently slammed his metal arm against the table and rattled the trays. "I'm sorry..." He released a straggled cry of pain. "I did this to you...I made you bleed." he gritted. "I'M SORRY!"

"Buck," Steve used a serene voice, and he reached out his hand to grasp his displaced friend's trembling right shoulder. "Easy..."

"No," the Soldier shook his head, and stared intently at the gauze covering Steve's midsection. It was torture. He'd want to unleash all his pain, the tears and allow everything to pour out of him. But maybe it was a disaster waiting to happen, if he got close to Steve, his enemies would consider him a target; his life meant nothing to HYDRA. This was a risk. A shroud of darkness crept over his youthful face as he rested his chin on his knee tucked against his chest. "Why do you still talk to me?" he asked in a shuttering voice, and kept his eyes narrowed at the floor. "I almost killed you..." he paused and drew out a ragged breath of anguish.

"It wasn't your fault, Buck." Steve reveled, and winced under his breath. "HYDRA turned you into a machine. A weapon that had been created to follow their orders." he digressed feeling the remorse simmer in his veins. His voice was laced with empathy. "You broke free from everything they did to you, Bucky."

"Why do you call that name?" The Soldier hissed, stiffening in the chair. "I have no name."

Steve heaved out a dismal sigh, "Yes you do, and HYDRA stole it from you. Your real name is James Buchanan Barnes. You were born on March 10th 1917, Brooklyn, New York."

"No, that's impossible." He shook his head, clenching his teeth like feral animal. Rage consumed all emotion, and blood pumped faster in his veins. "I was born in Moscow, Russia. My mother died of childbirth and Alexander Pierce raised me has his adopted son." He shot Steve a lethal growler, and scowled." You liar, I was never born in America." he growled ruefully. "I'm not from Brooklyn. I'm a child of winter." He straightened from the chair, and thumped his boots to the doorway. He halted in his fervent steps, turned and glanced at Steve's pleading blue eyes glistening with a coating of tears. "'I will never be James Barnes. That man is a ghost that you tried bring back from the dead."

"We stuck together like glue everywhere we went as kids." Steve reminded him with faint breath ghosting over his split lips. "You were always there when I needed someone to talk too...You were everything to me when I had nothin' but the clothes on my back." Steve clamped his eyes shut, and gripped the sheets with his fists. "When bullies had me on the ropes, you were always there to save me. You never cheated me out, Buck. You are my friend...no matter what they made or force you to believe. We're brothers to the end."

"Maybe I was this Bucky ...your friend in another life..." He spoke with a sullen expression darkening his face. Tears pricked his eyes as he looked at Steve through the dark strands of his messy hair cloaking over the sides of his face. He stared at the wrist bracket, and peered deeply at the name "Now, I'm nobody, Steve Rogers."

Steve felt his heart shatter into pieces; he allowed salty tears to roll down his knife-edged cheek bones. "You are, Bucky Barnes, even if you don't remember. You've always been him and right now..." He sealed his lips and trained his deep blue eyes on his friend. "All I see is my friend..." He narrowed his pained gaze, and fought against the pain erupting in his body. "The one I thought I lost. If you don't remember who you once were...I do...and I will never stop calling you Bucky Barnes. I promise you that, my friend."

Shaking his head, the Winter Soldier felt his lips stretch into a small frown, and then left the room. "Buck, where are you going?" Steve called out, and sensed that his friend was going to disappear again.

"I'm getting a coffee." the Soldier grumbled out a response in the hall. "Do you want one, Steve Rogers?"

Steve felt a brush of relief cross over his lips and he rested his head back against the pillow. He smiled.


	4. Chapter 4

**_Chapter 4_**

* * *

_Coffee._

His torrent thoughts kept on repeating the same word like a broken record turning on the spindle in his mind, and his heavy-lidded eyes narrowed on the floor as he shuffled numbly down the hall. He was trying not to look intimidating, even though his face was shroud by darkness, and feral, pale blue eyes burned like sapphire underneath strands of long hair. He tried to look approachable, but it also didn't help he wore black and heavy combat boots. His five-eleven stature reeked hostile retribution, raw power and untamed urges to kill. He felt like a lone, scowling wolf trapped inside a flock of sheep.

Hell, even when the Soldier numbly passed nurses, they gingerly parted from his purposeful stride. He never paid attention, or read people's expressions, but when he spared a glance at a few people waiting in line in the hospitals main cafeteria, all he saw welled in their suspicious eyes was fear and judgment. His brain warred over the conflicting thoughts as he stood stoic , awkwardly in front of glass counter displaying glazed donuts, fruit bowls, muffins and yogurt cups._  
_

_'Do I even like coffee?' _he questioned silently, glancing at the display board on the back wall. He stuffed his metal hand in the pocket of his jeans, and removed out a tattered wallet, while training his eyes on two electronic coffee pots brewing fresh grounded coffee, while a young woman, brunette, was crouched down placing another tray of muffins in the case. Grabbing her attention, he cleared his throat, nearly startling her as she jumped up and stared at him. "I'm sorry," he whispered, trying to sound gentle as his low baritone carried through the air. "I would like to large black coffees." He said, almost he was giving her an order for a mission. "I'm not sure what most people put in their coffees?"

"Cream and sugar." she answered him, grabbing two plastic cups from a stack, and carefully but efficiently pouring the smoldering coffee into each cup. "You're visiting a friend?" she asked, sounding friendly. "Every visitor comes here to get a coffee. I think caffeine relaxes the body when they're facing stress and worry about their loved ones."

_'Is Steve Rogers my friend?' _The Soldier asked himself, shifting his blue eyes over empty tables. His heart began to drum in his chest, and brows furrowed with lines of confusion.

The brunette moved back to the counter, and leveled her almond shaped eyes with him, and he stared intently at the color of seawater swirling in her irises. It had been a long time since he gazed into warmth, human people without coldness and hatred. She gave him the total amount, and he paid with cash, and walked away from the counter without sharing another word to her. He lifted the rim of the cup to his mouth, his upper lip quivered as he inhaled the steam, and after taking a sip, he discovered that he did enjoy the taste of coffee.

* * *

After a long moment of standing stoically outside the door frame, he slowly walked over to the corner of the white painted room-cringing inwardly at the EKG machine, IV drip lodged into Steve's wrist and visual reminders of his raw brutality he unleashed on the golden haired man's face a few days back, when he followed orders without reason, guilt and humanity. He stumbled on his boots, lightly cursing as coffee managed to spill into little puddles on the floor. He allowed his clear blue, disquieted eyes to drift over the bed as sound of dismay ragged from the depths of his raw throat as stale heat scraped over his lungs.

"Steve is going to beat this," he blew out a sparse whisper, curling his fingers into fists as his nails dug into the soft flesh of his right palm. "He's a fighter..." He reminded himself, angst tensed over his gleaming forehead. "He never backed away from a fight. He was too stupid."

He halted his strides at the foot of a bed-narrowing his misty eyes down at the massive, bulky and stubborn punk he once cherished greatly as his best friend, Steven Grant Rogers, smile dolefully at his darkened presence.

With a small shiver, the Soldier inched closer to Steve, standing ridgy near the mattress. Steve had become three shades whiter-almost ashen and so frail in the face since the last time he really took a moment to rake his eyes over his anemic friend, his collar bone bruised, rib bones covered with gauze under his thin hospital gown and his sharp cheekbones stained with dried smears of blood. Steve lifted his head slowly, meeting the Soldier's firm gaze with his serious blue eyes_—_shimmering with crescents of burning defiance.

"Hey," He said, his voice uneven and cracked, bespoke with exhaustion. He sat in chair next to the bed side, looking directly at Steve with his steady blue eyes. He extended out his metal hand, and handed Steve the coffee. "I wasn't sure.." He swallowed in mid-sentence. "I couldn't remember if you liked it plain or sweet?"

Steve remained silent, he narrowed his eyes at the coffee in his hands.

"How are you feeling?" the Soldier asked, biting his tongue as the distinct corners of his mouth altered into a frown. "Wait, that was a stupid question to ask." He pressed his lips tightly, narrowing his head, a sinking despair began growing in his gut. "I know you want be to be this Bucky Barnes again, Steve, it's so hard to remember who I used to be..." he avowed.

"Yeah, but I know who you are, Buck." Steve answered in a nonchalant tone, his voice quiet and weak. He glared up at at his friend with his stern blue eyes. He placed his hand gently over other man's metal wrist. "You will remember everything...I will help you..no matter how long it takes. I promise you that, Buck."

"Why do you want to help me?" He asked softly, he felt tears prick in his eyes. "I'm not someone that you should help, I know that I'm dangerous..." he ceased his words and acutely listened to the muffled sounds of Steve's labored breathing echoing in his ears_—_he grimaced as the chiseled lines of his broad cheeks and jaw tightened; his own eyes hinting a fever and face flushed. "I want to have a name again..." He took a deep breath, watching Steve's chest rise and fall. He leaned over, reached out and placed his hand firmly on the blonde haired 'super-soldier's broad shoulder. "I don't want to be a ghost anymore, Steve."

Steve furrowed his eyebrows, "Buck?" he didn't query in disbelief, instead he peered seriously into his lifelong friend's fixed gaze_—_ his glittering blue eyes morphed into the color of bluish-gray alloy caress of the morning sunlight. "I need you to trust me.." He closed his eyes momentary, and drew out a deep, cleaning breath. "I need you to believe that I will help you find yourself again."

"How can you help me?" The Soldier respired sharply to Steve, trying to hide the tears glimmering in his dreary blue eyes at they wondered throughout the room, the viranuim shield leaned against the metal frame of the frame seized his attention, the metallic colors of red and silver gleamed under the light as it cast over floor and over the bed. The shield became a symbol of r memory as recognition veiled over his face. "I remember this..." He said with a dim undertone, and moved to the end of the bed, and lifted up the shield close to his chest. His metal fingers absently run over the smooth engravings, as he stared down at the star in the center. "You used to make the Germans yield when you threw it." He smiled fondly, and lowered the shield back down. His hands tucked solemnly as he began to walk over to the window. "At first I thought it was a stupid weapon to use in the front lines, but you proved me wrong." He hung his head down.

Steve observed the crestfallen expression on his friend's face and looked back at the shield. He heaved out a disgruntled sigh and looked at the sadness masking over Bucky's unbalanced azure eyes. He gritted his teeth and sat back against the pillows and set his jaw hard. "You were the one that pulled me out of Potomac River...It was you?"

"It doesn't matter." the Soldier dejected, and stifled his lips into a firm grimace. He felt a small seed of remorse plant itself in the layers of his heart, burning resentfully as he looked at Steve serene face. "A soldier never leaves a fallen man behind." he breathed out a sharp exhale, and bit into his lower lip. "I couldn't watch you drown...You're a good man. That's not how good men die." he revealed, his voice troubled and frayed.

Steve felt the icy, condemning guilt pierce through his own heart, and his stomach twisted into knots making the bile slosh against his insides. He felt sick. He lifted a hand up from the mattress and gestured the Russian assent to advance closer, just for a second he saw the familiar gleam in his blue eyes, but it dissolved as darkness of malice cloaked over his ruddy and unshaven cheeks. "You're a good man, Buck." he wheezed out, feeling his tongue become thick as cotton. His words muffled, but true. "You've always been a good man. No matter what they've done to you." He dropped his gaze, and pressed his lips tight. "I know you have the serum in you, Bucky. The enhance speed, strength and agility...You need to know that it was created to make good men great in this world and bad men worse. I think in time you will understand the truth and use it like I did."

A tear slipped down the Soldier's jaw and he feels the world spiraling around him. "You were meant for great things, Buck. But you got lost, and I stopped myself from trying to find you because I thought you died..."

"It's not your fault." He finally stammered out, the words clogging against his throat. "I'm sure if Bucky was found...He would say the same thing, Steve."

Steve sighed, and gave him a watery smile. " I think I just found him." He whispered, and watched a small ghost of smile grace over the other man's neutral lips. He felt a warm, searing hope enter his broken heart before he faintly closed his eyelids shut and drifted into a peaceful slumber with the presence of his friend watching over him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

He sat in the darkness silently. The blue and amber tinges of the city lights reflected over his rugged skin. He shoved his metal hand into the pocket of his tattered leather jacket that hunched over his broad shoulders. His chin lengthened dark, chestnut hair was tucked behind his ears. Tension piled over his rigid muscles as he fought to keep his heavy-lidded eyes open. The blue hue of his hazy irises captured the gleams of distant light, but he still has the savage gaze of a wolf, feral and able to evoke dread onto anyone who dared to cross his path.

Each pant of breath that escaped from his lips became a steady pitch of relief against the swirls of invasive torment formulating in his butchered soul. He winced, then stood out of the chair and methodically strode to the window and allowed the shadows to cloak over his body. A strange dizziness overtook him that kept him unbalance on the soles of his boots. He gripped a small table, hoping that his metallic hand didn't clash with a tray of medical supplies; he didn't want to disturb Steve-

"Are you okay, Buck?"

The Winter Soldier felt the blood roaring in his ears. He didn't turn around as hesitation rippled in his veins. Images of red haze, darkened shapes of monsters in lab coats, and the endless sound of drilling into bone kept him frozen in thought. He scowled for a long moment, basking in the torment his mind conceived. His whole body jerked. A choking breath slithered down his raw throat as murky water filled his eyes, binding him back into an abyss.

He blinked, and swept his arm over his face. His chest tightened, and his lips quivered until he felt certain to answer. "Я в порядке!" he bit out with a harsh and resentful breath, and repeated his words without Russian ghosting off his tongue. He heard his American accent project from the depths of his gut, load, brash and filled with defiance "I'm fine..." He felt his muscles coil when he felt Steve's passive cobalt blue eyes stare him down across the room. Curling his metal fingers, he clutched his frustrations into a fist, and slowly twisted around. He stared directly at Steve sitting on the edge of the bed, with an arm cradled over his cotton swathed torso. His stern blue eyes shining in the obscurity of the room."I'm fine, Steve." he dejected with a sullen tone. "Go back to sleep. You need to rest."

Steve's face twisted with pain. He opened his mouth to protest, but all came out was a slight groan of distress. His lightly swollen lips fastened into a firm grimace. The room spun around him. Everything felt unsettled; his muscles throbbed, almost like someone was poking jagged blades through his abdominal muscles. His breath released unevenly from his lungs. His eyes watered as he restrained himself to avail from the pain. "How can I rest when you're moving through room like a raging bull?" he gritted.

"Sorry," The Soldier muffled out a response. He advanced closer to the bed, and forced himself to sit into the chair. "I wasn't trying to wake you up, Steve. I'm not used to having someone to talk too...At least who treats me as a human and not an obedient pet." He began to feel his fingers seizing up again, but he rotated his stare, and refused to put his guard down. 'That's what they make you feel like-a worthless dog to abuse. That graphite mask I wore acted like a muzzle to restrain me from disobeying their commands. There was a device planted inside that sent electronic waves through my face if I retaliated." He shrugged his shoulder as he smirked darkly, despite feeling his muscles lock up. "You get used to it after blood starts leaking out of your mouth and your voice freezes up. That's your reward for serving HYDRA."

Steve felt his heart slam against his chest when he heard those words, but he gazed at his friend with clear and steady eyes. He took a deep breath, and sniffled a little as pressure of remorse crushed over his ribs. "You're free now, Buck. I will never let anything like that ever happen to you again. I promise."

He never wanted to look for mercy in the world, he thought he would be condemned back into the stasis chamber and whatever part of his soul wiped away from good with a kill switch. It was a fate he deserved for his sin-for all the lives he destroyed as he held them under his gun. He couldn't accept that sad conclusion of his existence, not when he had Steve as his anchor to pull him out of the red tempest that threatened to drown him. Maybe he was meant to save lives, instead of extinguishing the light of humanity for a morbid purpose of HYDRA restoring the world. His lips tingled into a half of smile as he stretched out his hand, overlapping Steve's bruised knuckles. "I know." He said, and watched with his intent blue eyes as a small, faint beam of hope grace over Steve's face.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

* * *

"Bucky," Steve spoke in a faint whisper at the rogue assassin who was curled into a tight ball on the floor of the bathroom: his chin tucked down to his pectorals and his legs bent tightly to his rising chest.

His metallic alloy hand protectively shielded his wounded right arm. He was still and breathing steady, his dark chestnut strands were draped over his face and lips only parted when he released a light, compressed breath of warm air.

The Soldier's azure colored eyes were owlish, intrepid and tantalizing dismay surged through his body as he jerked his head up to Steve's voice. Pain was still sharp in some parts of his body that he tried to conceal with clothing he managed to steal from the local thrift store. His gray shirt underneath the jacket was stained with maroon from the gashes caused by the shards of glass that was lodged into layers of ashen tinged muscle. He blinked his foggy eyes, focusing his vision on the blurry figure towering over him. Sweat meandered his temples, and his breaths came up short, panic laced gasps.

He scuffled to his feet, and grasped the basin of the sink; his metal fingers squeezed pressure, and made pieces of ceramic fall to the floor tiles. "You need to rest." The Soldier said with an irritable growl rising up the walls of his throat. He struggled not to snarl as another jolt of pain zipped through his veins. "If they catch you out of bed in your condition," he paused and raked his bleary eyes over Steve's bandaged covered injured and lightly grimace. "They won't be too happy, Steve."

"It's alright, Buck." Steve clarified in a low pitch of breath, he leaned his weight against the door frame. "I needed to the move around. You remember how much I hated staying in bed. It always made feel like a prisoner." He gave his best friend a feeble murmur. His muscles jostled as he barely kept his balance, he pressed his broad shoulder into the door, and shifted his massive, wounded body until he uprooted and steady on his bare feet. He inclined his head in a fashion of declared gratitude and admiration. "I always had you to make me forget about those things." Steve slowly dropped his chiseled jaw low, and felt a sharp throb in his chest. "I know you can't remember, but I just wanted to say that to you."

The Soldier stared at him, his blue eyes tearing up. "I do remember some things." he whispered, the essence of a smile morphed over his lips into a poorly sloped curve. «Everything is a blur when I try to gather up the details. I do remember sitting by a bedside next to a small blonde haired boy who barely looked alive sometimes, he always pushed himself to fight against the sickness. He had nothing." He sealed his lips into a tight crease, and roved his gaze to meet Steve's passive, deep cerulean eyes as he entered a daze of recollection. "It was you..." His voice suddenly grew distant, as he kept his stare locked on Steve's face. 'You were the sick boy...You were my friend, Steve Rogers?"

"Yes." Steve replied, sniffing as tears rolled down his sharp-edged cheekbones. He drew out a somber exhale of breath, feeling more pressuring guilt being lightened off his shoulders. He smiled at the asset with a tender gleam in his eyes, marveling at how just looking at his best friend, just staring at the young soldier who he believed was lost in the chasms of winter made the grief fade and the darkness recede against the light warming his soul. He pushed himself, dragging his feet on the floor, and reached out his hand for the operative to freely take. "I am your friend, Buck." he said with an honest face. "If you can't remember the man you once were...I always will, pal."

"Thank you, Steve, for letting me stay with you in this place." The Soldier hung his head low and nodded silently before taking Steve's large hand. He closed his eyes and pulled the super-soldier close to him, wrapped Steve into a big, brotherly hug, slapping leather against firm, bruised muscle of his chest. He needed Steve more than anything. He needed his friend and captain to guide him back to home-front. He had been on the front lines for a long time.

He wanted to go back to Brooklyn...He desired to go back home.

Feeling the warm of his friend thaw out his frozen heart, he brought his lips close to Steve's ear, and whispered out faint, but heartfelt words, "Bring me back home, Captain Rogers."

Steve nodded, enclosing his bulky arms over his friend's slender frame, and he made a hearts promise beyond the fabrics of his soul. He wasn't going to let Bucky go.

"Sure thing, Sergeant Barnes." he affirmed with an unbreakable smile.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

* * *

_Who am I ?_

The muggy breeze of the surly, summer heat buffeted over his ashen skin. He stood in front of an untainted mirror in the vacant washroom listening to the distant sounds of traffic around him. His refection looked back at him disdainfully, it was ghost trapped inside a prison of glass. He looked ragged, disheveled and broken. His visage was nothing like the suave, confident and handsome soldier he had seen on old footage at the museum exhibit of the Howling Commandos, his dark chestnut strands had grown far to long and knotted, cascading over the sides of his face like disheveled curtains, his face wasn't clean-shaven and smooth, and his complexion was pale and sickly. When he guardedly moved out of the obscurity of bathroom, his strides were methodical, systematic, and unknown.

He'd always glanced at the normal lives around him, like a looming, shadowy wraith, and disappeared without leaving any traces of his elusive presence.

He had become a ghost to every database —eliminating targets, and causing an obstruction in security protocols. Everything he did, whether slashing his knife, pulling the trigger or detonating a wireless bomb was a piece to help HYDRA thrive in the shadows, and to break the barriers of secured truths about the red part of governmental system of order and chaos.

Now, after subqunecal mental conditioning, the Soldier still hadn't grasped the answers of his inner weaving conflict or harness the control of his stolen memory. He was still programmed to respond to orders, his mind had been alerted to become obedient to his superiors, and his body still felt the coldness of winter encase over his bones.

The moments around him seemed unnatural, when he closed his eyes, he established that he was in fact, still controlled by the waves of torrent thoughts, and the droning voices of his handlers still echoed in the dark recesses of his torment. His breathing grew rapid in his lungs; he tried to focus on memories of Steve, his name and the reason that why he was staying inside the hospital instead of releasing out his aggression into a concrete wall.

He wanted to rediscover life, and didn't want to spend his days of recovery trapped behind the walls with a doctor's office who placed him into a chair and asked unnerving questions about his sleeping habits, caffeine addictions, and surging urges of lashing out if a word or image triggered his warring programming.

HYDRA tampered with his thoughts, weaving their own ideals into his memory codes, keeping him under their control. They watched him shatter into pieces when the threads of his soul twisted and knotted within, creating a barrier to trap all emotion and allow him to feel nothing.

They never stopped him from receiving pain, his injections were always constant, and if he showed resistance to their orders, he'd get slapped in the face by his high superiors until blood strained his chiseled cheekbones and broad jaw.

He knew that his life was stolen from him and that he was used as a slave for their reckoning to create a new world order. He had nightmares, binding him to the darkness, making him feel the wielding knives of guilt pierce through his heart, and cut deeper until he was as cold as winter's ice.

Gasping out a heavy breath, the Soldier snapped opened his blurry blue eyes; the haze of moonlight from the window struck his steel-blue irises, stinging through his eye sockets. He lowered his head, blanching with an alarmed posture, and banged the back of his calves into the wood. He clenched his teeth, fuming heated breath out of his nostrils, he suddenly felt disturbed, lost and aggravated with his surroundings. Groaning, he clasped his metal fingers over the door frame, gripping tightly, trepidation pounding against his skull. He felt his mind becoming consumed with pain. "NO!" he snarled, gnashing his teeth, into a tameless expression.

_Mission report._

Shaking his head violently, strands of dark hair fell over his sweaty neck, he squeezed his eyelids shut, "GET OUT OF MY HEAD- ARGHHHH!" he roared, and his flaring,owlish blue eyes became a livid color of glossy white.

The words ripped from the depth of his throat, scraping out from the layers of his heaving chest. Feeling his legs wobble, he crashed to his knees, his face twisted with agony, hands clawing at his curtains of hair, and he parted his quivering lips to release a shattering whimper of distress into the air. He began to enter a meltdown.

"Please." he choked out with a defective voice, trembling in the layers of his clothing. He needed to find a door of escape-a way out, before he fully went into his Winter Soldier mindset again. "Steve, help me!' he shrilled out with frantic breaths, sounding like a calcified and wayward child. "Steve..." He clamped his hand over his mouth, crawling, and panting out erratic breaths as he managed to pressed the muscle planes of his back against the door. He unleashed a high-pitch screech of agony. His mangled soul shredded into twirling threads.

Just then, the warmth of a familiar presence toasted his bones and a statuesque muscular figure appeared in the shafts of dim light, nothing more than a comforting shadow of a friend. Steve limped closer to him, groaning out a deep sigh, clearly fighting against the pain of his injuries.

The Soldier sniffled and dared himself to lift his head. He looked over his shoulder, gnawing on his bottom lip, and tried to keep a stern composure, nibbling on soft flesh.

"Bucky?" Steve's sleep hazed voice reached the assassins ears and he grimaced as his body lowered to the level of his mournful friend. The assassin's sweat glazed torso jerked as he flinched with the sudden impact of his own mania. His breath caught like a knife had been searing between his rib bones, and the tears blinded him enough to stare at splotches of dark shapes."Hey, are you okay, pal?" He placed his hand gently on the Soldier's metal shoulder, looking at figures shake. "You know that I will listen to anything you want to talk about, Buck?"

"No." The Soldier blurted out with an absent voice, probing his fingers over the floor. His blue eyes grew wide, vicious and obfuscous, unblinking and unseeing, and he quivered with the momentum of his arousal. His breath resumed with shuttering, sucking pants of air that ripped his lungs apart with pain. "If I told you, Steve, it would make you never sleep again." He stopped to breathed out a heavy gulp of air, his was entrapped in the twilight between anger and guilt. And, he felt the solid cold tension unraveled from his body, until his bones transformed into jelly and his lips numb. "I know that I'm not human, even though I look it on the outside...Inside... I'm a monster." He swallowed and kept his eyelids sealed shut. "I can't feel anything Steve. I'm hollow like a gun," he said his voice deep and lurid as he found his escape from the dismay suffocating him.

"You know that's not true, Buck." Steve soothed in a despondent tone. "Armin Zola made you believe those lies to recondition you into a weapon." He narrowed his eyes, his blood scalding with vehemence. "I should have stopped him when I had the chance. You were the one who paid the price out of my own actions of stopping HYDRA so this world could have its freedom."

"A life doesn't deserve freedom, not when that life is the one who took it away." The Soviet assassin said in a resentful tone. He vaguely recalled slashes of an iron rod whacking against his back when he disobeyed his direct orders, obvious to the fact that he tortured for his defiance against the voices of his superiors. He had been in a delirious state for a long time. He was awakening.

"Stop thinking that you were the done who did those horrible things, Buck," Steve said. "It was never your fault. You are am honorable man. A Howling Commando. And, my best friend."

"What is a friend?" the Soldier asked. "I do not remember what a friend is, Steve."

Steve stroked his fingers over the metal bicep as he stared at the assassin, hardened by the remorse he carried. His mind churned. He wanted his friend back. Bucky was slowly slipping away, he was fading, and maybe even dying, and he had nothing. Nothing except a soldier's faith that they were going to make it through the battlefield and a have victory of freedom to live away from the darkness, and he could not afford to lose that hope.

"Friend..." He wheezed. The mere thought of speaking was like he had been stabbed in his chest. He couldn't bring himself to say the words he wanted Bucky to hear, but all he could think about the humid summer nights in Brooklyn and the hours they spent sitting on the steps of a wooden stairwell enjoying a glass bottle of Coke Cola and the conversations they shared when both of their pockets were empty. He desperately wanted to stare into the clear blue eyes of Bucky Barnes not the Winter Soldier's deaden gaze. "A friend is someone who sticks with you even through you have nothing. You always have someone who finds a way to always keep you standing on solid ground. I know it's hard to remember everything-it might a lifetime for you to have your memories restored, but you're not alone in this fight. You've got me, Buck."

The Soldier peered at him, panting, and pressing a fist into the center of his chest. Steve's angular face was clear now, the muted city lights streaked through the gaps of the curtains. Long lines painted over his chiseled skin, highlighting his deep blue eyes, cheekbones, nose and his lips with a pastel hue of kindling amber. His bare muscles coated with bruises, gauze and lingering smears of dried maroon. He looked so noble that it was almost unnerving.

"You're my friend..." The assassin gasped in shock, his mind fading with memory from the hours before. "I remember your face so well...I...can't remember who I am, Steve." He lowered his weary head and rested his chin on his knees, where they bent up close to the feverish skin of his pectorals.

"Bucky?" Steve whispered to his friend, keeping his hand steady on the assassins shoulder. He knew how to talk to him, he had done it many of the times with soldiers who were shell-shocked and with Peggy Carter.

He listened to the Soldier's breathing slowing, as he gently placed his hand on the other man's unshaven jaw. "Buck, you will remember."

The Soldier cried.

"I'm not giving up on you, pal." Steve spoke with hope burning in his chest. He sighed long and hard. "I'm here for you, no matter what, Bucky."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

A few hours after avoiding a confrontation with Sam Wilson and listening to the replays of the '_Trouble man__'_ soundtrack Bucky aimlessly wandered through the corridors like a looming wraith, just keeping to himself and getting familiarly with his surroundings; he didn't linger much, he wanted to take every moment time spared to give and observed people, watching the different semblances of emotions written on their faces.

Every doorway he passed with his methodical and hushed strides was occupied with patients, distressed family members and exhausted nurses. Mostly, Bucky saw hopelessness in the sables of thick darkness shrouding over corridors. Death was creeping at some doors; he felt the chilling presence of the mortal departure jostle his bones. Was he just a beholder of the new world around? A drifting ghost of shadow who remained frozen in the folds of time as lives became frail as threads billowing in the frosty breath of winter? Could he finally emerge out of his prison and have that warmth restored back into him by fighting against the domination of HYDRA's strings? He needed to break out of the chains restraining him from regaining his stolen vitality.

He sat next to a vending machine, his back pressed against the white painted brick wall, knees inserted close to his pectorals as he felt the muscles of his torso constrict. The hood of his dark sweater tucked away limp disheveled tresses of his disarray shoulder-lengthen hair as he crossed his arms and rested his laden chin on his gloved knuckles. His pale azure eyes were fixated on the shadows reflecting on the floor. The thermal heat of his clothing prevented his body from quelling against feverish chills.

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes." He self-confessed, as those words were drilled into his skull, as he continued his mantra with a muffled voice. "107th, Brooklyn. U.S.A." he replayed the voice of Steve Rogers, feeling those truths burn inside the barriers of his chest. He knew that he was born in Brooklyn, he could not remember his parents' names, how many siblings he had and how did his mother die? Those were still blocked out from the buzzing static in his thought pools. Every day a fragment emerged as the essence of the man he once was before the ice encased his bones slowly seeped out of the cracks of the hardened and disciplined exterior of the Winter Soldier.

The hood became his mask, veiling his youthful, roughcast, and menacing face from the eyes of the world. His temples started to throb with pulsating trepidation as he listened to the dimming voices of hospital staff echo as though from long distance. Padded footsteps shuffled up and down the hall, peeping of pagers and droning hums of machines grew to become aggravating and invasive. He screwed his eyelids shut and buried his head into his knees while he shuddered against the chaos around him. He was trapped in the void of whirling thoughts that he did not notice a little, frail boy standing in doorway of a bright room wearing a gray Captain America shirt and pajama bottoms and a baseball cap that covered his shaved and scared scalp.

"Are you okay, mister?" the boy asked in a strained and barely sparse of a voice. It almost sounded like a ghost. Alarmed by the sudden acknowledgement of the child, Bucky snapped his eyes opened, allowed the luminescence of the ceiling lights to reflect in the intensity of grayish blue chasms. He was in shock. Fear washed over him like a clashing wave, leaving a mess in its wake. It was strange and unfamiliar for him to have feelings and to respond without feeling the urges to attack. "You don't look so good."

Bucky shifted an unsettling gaze to the boy, locking his intent, dismal metallic eyes on a small frame of bones, sickly pale complexion, and brilliant crystal blue eyes that were filled with such tenderness it made his heart ache. 'I'm fine, kid." He grumbled in his deep gravelly voice, lowering his threatening glower to the floor. He wanted to remain in isolated and refused to speak. "You shouldn't be talking to me, kid. I'm not someone who is good for conservation. I just want to be left alone."

"No one deserves to be lonely in this place, mister." The boy replied, inching closer to the murderous assassin. His steps were tentative and sluggish. He wheezed out a breath as he slowly crouched down to meet the man's soulful, and tortured blue eyes that were glistening with tears of hidden pain under the umbra of matted hair. He reached out a small hand and touched the metal plates that were exposed to the light above them. "I can tell you're a good man." He revealed with a soft pitch of voice as his words reached the Winter Soldier's grieving soul. "Are you a soldier, mister?"

"I'm a different kind of soldier, kid." Bucky whispered in a faint voice filled with heated conviction. He had dim recollection of memories in uniform, holding a loaded rifle and cutting through the snow coated landscape like a knife in the dark. He was sharp as a blade, deadly and fast when engaging enemy lines. "A wounded one."

'My grandpa was soldier." The child said with declaration and honor in his weakening voice. "A tail gunner on really big plane." He cracked a smile before coughing out a lungful of air. Bucky could see the discomfort and the dark shades etched on his thin features. He was a terminal patient in sick children's ward; he was too young to die. "When I get out of here, I'm going flying with him."

"That's pretty cool." Bucky replied not allowing his emotions to become compromised. As the Winter Soldier he was condemned not to feel. As he looked at the boys struggle through the pain he carried, somewhere in the abyss of his soul, the real James Barnes crawled out of the darkened pit of the horrors, the mindless programming and inhumane tortures his body withstood while being chained to the wall of HYDRA's order. He was given a second chance to restore his dignity, name and soul. He felt the kindling hope sear through his bones as he leveled his ominous blue eyes fixing them on the child like he did to his countless targets who cowered at his stare, except this time his gaze was pliable and concerning. "Areyou hungry kid?" he asked, sending his scrutiny to the vending machine. He straightened to his boots, wincing as he rubbed his mending right arm. "I got a few bucks on me. Pick anything you like."

"Well, the nurses do not allow me to have candy in my room. I forgot the taste of Reese's Pieces. It's been so long since I had chocolate and peanut butter."

Bucky nodded and stood in front of the machine. His eyes were fastened on his intimating reflection, instantly he pulled off his hood and allowed his long vibrant brown strands to fall at the base line of his broad shoulders, swathing over his throat. He furrowed his eyebrows into a confused expression as he glowered at the different kinds of candy and gum. "What does the candy you want really look like, kid?" he asked with a sheepish tone.

"Do you know what Reese's Pieces look like, soldier?"

"The candy I can remember was in glass jars and brown paper bags at drug store. This is different. I never have seen these types of chocolate bars before."

The boy gave him a faint laugh, and walked with unbalanced steps to the machine. He pointed at the top row of a bright orange and yellow wrapped with a picture of chocolate cups on the front. "That's a Reese's Pieces." He smiled brightly, watching the reformed assassin give him a short nod while he pressed a double code on the buttons and placed the change into the slot. Within seconds two candy bars dropped with the shelf and fall down into another slot. He grabbed the candy and handed one to Bucky. "My name is Danny by the way. Daniel Thomas Richards."

"My name, well at least what I remember a good friend telling me is Bucky," the soldier replied with honest voice. "James Buchanan Barnes. You can call me anything you would like, Danny Richards."

Danny smirked, ripping the wrapper as he lifted his tired blue eyes and stared at Bucky's trusting face. "I think I will call you soldier. That's what you are to me."

Bucky felt his lips stretch into a wide smile, warmth began toenter his cheeks and tears pricked his eyes. He felt human again. Carefully, he knelt down and placed his gloved hand on Danny's bony shoulder. "I know someone who is very cool to meet, Danny. He's a good soldier. The greatest one there ever was in his time." He narrowed his eyes, and bit down on his lower lip. "How we snag another chocolate bar and go pay him a visit in his room?"

Danny's blue eyes lit up with excitement, as he grabbed Bucky's hand, interlocked his fingers with his own, and gazed up at him. "What's the soldier's name?" he asked his pulse elevating in his peaked body.

"Captain Rogers." Bucky replied, lifting his metal hand to the machine as he intersected more change. He felt a smile tug on the corners of his lavish lips. He grabbed the candy with lightning speed. "He prefers to be called, Steve."

Danny rasped out another pained cough, as he mirrored Bucky's smile. "Is Captain Steve Rogers your friend, soldier?"

"Yes." Bucky nodded with light shining through the darkness of his blue eyes. He wrapped his metal alloy arm around Danny and walked him down the hall as he whispered sure, but true words that never escaped from his heart even when he believed he did not have one. "Steve is my best friend."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

* * *

Soft glimmers of light from the hall ceiling reflected over the alloy plates of his metallic knuckles. Bucky felt his torrent thoughts shuffling haphazardly in his mind and clenched his chiseled jaw. His intimating body was disheveled and his strides sluggish as he pushed himself down the corridor, feeling the small ounces of determination and momentum coursing in his veins.

His fever was getting worse, icy shivers consumed every nerve and there grew a sudden dryness in his throat. Drops of warm, salty sweat trickled down his pulsing temples, and his vision had become hazy and unclear as he advanced closer to the doors that led to Steve's room. His heavy tactical boots dragged effortlessly against the floor, he sniffled as the starchy taste coated over his tongue. He was sore.

_'You follow orders. That is your purpose...The reason why you live.'_

Numbness from the coldness of harden grief encased over his rigid bones-his right arm was still bruised and tarnished with finger marks of his last mission, the prime structure of his forearm had twisted into a fracture of dislocated tissue and broken pieces of ivory. He knew that he would heal within days; he always recovered from injuries without the heavy pumps of morphine coursing in his veins. He knew how to withstand pain, to avoid the smell the wafting scent of death and to train his menacing, wolfish blue eyes on the desolation of vitality he caused by his own hands-metal and flesh. The binary codes of a monster were created on operating table that was frigid as winter's ice.

_'Freedom is just an illusion of fear.'_

The Winter Soldier never allowed the folds of anguish to dwell within the depths of his tortured soul. He was programmed never to feel the warm plasma seeping out of his wounds. He had become a captive inside a coffin of ice, stored away in the darkness with only a heart monitor latched over the bare planes of his chest to keep his pulse steady while he fell into a frozen slumber and waited for his handlers to pull him back into the world when the dark shroud of terrorism and fear needed to hover over the diseased cities of the rebuilding empire. He was a mindless sentinel who had lurked in the shadows of ruin and pulled the trigger when he received his orders from his makers. He always felt the danger, obsessions and the carnage pulsating through every fiber of his body.

_'You kill in the name of HYDRA...Hail HYDRA.'_

Halting in his steps, Bucky trembled in panic. He parted his watery lips and unleashed a gut-wrenching cry that almost like he had his soul ripped out of him. He looked suddenly disillusioned. The color of his blue eyes transformed into a pale hue of ice, and he felt uneven in his footing. Trust. He needed someone to trust, his metal fingers clawed at material of a shirt, and he blinked the red flashes pain out his eyes as dark threatened to overtake him. The last blink crashed a tear that slowly ran over the plane of his cheek and fell over the left corner of his quivering mouth. "Please," he gulped down, almost choking out his blurting words. "Please don't let me go..."

"Soldier?"

The voice, the gentle sound of an innocent life jarred him back off of the darkened fathom. Bucky lifted his gaze, his complexion burned with intensity as he stared up at Danny. "I'm sorry, kid" he said, his breath hitching. He ran his ratty gloved hand through his dark tresses of laden hair and let loose a painful sigh. His thoughts were displaced and body on the razor's edge. He felt condemned and ashamed. "Did I hurt you, Danny?" he asked in a weakened tone, unlatching his coiled fingers off the boy's shirt. A flare of anger snarled through his veins, only to die as he met the shimmering blue eyes of his newest little friend. "Is your arm alright?"

"I'm okay, soldier." Danny answered, his voice dimming with concerned. "I'm more worried for you."

With a grimace, Bucky lifted his hand, and placed a gentle touch of human warmth on the boy's ashen colored cheek.

"You have nothing to worry about, Danny. This happens to me a lot when I'm alone." He closed his eyes. It was too painful to say to a child. He felt the conflict of his past sins and horror filled ordeals intertwining the threads of his disturbed soul. He needed to keep his distance. He did not want to injure Danny. He sighed, and allowed his pain to slip from his lips. "I deserve to be alone, Danny. My life doesn't exist like yours." he confessed, his voice trailing away as he stared at his metal hand. His heart ached, and smoldering tears that held a mixture of remorse and guilt filmed over his eyes. "I have no life, kid. Just my missions." He concluded with a hoarse, bitten whisper ghosting out of his lips. "And a name..."

_'I have no heart... I have no soul. I'm hollow like a weapon.'_

Danny pulled himself in closer, wrapping his thin arms around Bucky's lower back. He looked up at the Winter Soldier with no fear or hesitation welling in his blue eyes. "You have a life now, soldier." he wheezed out a breath. "Why don't you make that your mission?" He spoke the words that cut through the ice bordering over the assassin's heart.

For a moment, Bucky fell into a wave of silence, capturing the details around him, he felt vulnerable, misused and angry. After a long moment, he nodded minutely and smirked brightly. "I might just do that, Danny," he said in a confidant tone, and kept his metal arm secured over Danny's jutting shoulder bones.

He felt safe with his new friend, almost like he did when he lugged around a skinny Steven Rogers through the bustling streets of Brooklyn. He also felt protective over the boy, sometimes altering his blue eyes into murderous glower at the hospital staff. His soft expressions threatened to collapse into a menacing visage of a monster by reflex. Every second, he fought for his humanity. "Danny," he asked, conceiving the right words to say without making the boy feel uncomfortable. "Do you have friends that visit you in this place?" His eyes wandered over the vacant rooms, and he surpassed the chills jostling through his body.

"I used to friends. Most of them went away." Danny answered, lowering his head grimly down. His eyes sealed shut, and he sighed out a ragged breath.

"The nurses told me not to get too attached to things here. It's kind of hard not too, when you pretty much spend your whole life strapped to machine that filters out your blood and makes you forget about home." He swallowed, and rubbed his left arm, feeling the skin move under his cold fingertips. "I'm going to miss my arm, but they said it is the way to save me. I don't want the other kids making fun of me after the operation. I just want to be treated like a normal kid, soldier."

"Danny," Bucky said in a sparse voice, and lightly smiled making the skin around his eyes crinkle. He quickly lifted his sleeve, and revealed the bionic plates of flawless alloy to the boy, and enveloped his gloved hand over Danny's guiding the child's fingers over the ridges of metal.

He clenched his hand into a tight fist, and moved the plates; the sound of contorting became a faint hiss as he spoke in clement voice. «You're going too alright. Having a metal arm doesn't define who you are...It's what's inside that keeps you strong no matter what battle you face."

"Do you get scared when they operated on your arm?"

"I don't remember, but I think I was a little afraid." Bucky's voice became distant to the boy. He swallowed thickly, blinking the tears away. His throat swelled as wounded breath escaped from the depths. "I wanted my best friend with me...I want Steve beside me." He regarded Danny with his glistening, truthful eyes. He felt human again. «I promise you, Danny. When you go to battle, I'll be right with you." He gave him a promising smile that held the essence of warmth over his lips. «Now, let's go see, Steve."

Danny enclosed his arms over Bucky, holding him tight. "Thank you, Bucky Barnes." he whispered, and the assassin stroked his metal hand gently down the boy's back.

"You're welcome, Danny Richards."

Bucky smiled, feeling his heart burst with warmth, and he embraced the boy into a brotherly hug feeling his humanity spear through the black veils of HYDRA covering his soul. He felt alive...He had a new mission to carry out his heart pounded a soldier's oath through him.

_'I will save you, Danny.'_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

* * *

The moment Danny saw him, the living legend; he felt his weakened heart fluttered against his rib cage. He stood in the doorway with Bucky's metal hand fastened gently over his shoulder. His eyes watered with a toasty coating of tears as he stared at Captain Steve Rogers with a wondrous gleam in his cool blue eyes.

"It's really you?" he merely choked out, tasting the lingering metallic tang of blood against his strained throat. He was timid to move closer. Instead, he raked his glistening eyes over the massive super-soldier lying with his head and chiseled and bulky torso elevated, his face was marked with deep indents of light purple tinged bruises and scratches, but the ashen color of his complexion was returning to a normal vibrancy. Steve managed to crack a smile with his stiffed lips as he meet Danny's stare with his crystal blue irises.

"I wanted to see you, Captain America." the boy merely added, his thoughts addling against his small skull, and face beaming. "You're my favorite Avenger because you started out as a little guy just like me..." His voice hitched with strained pants of breath.

"What's your name, son?" Steve rasped in soft voice, his eyebrows creased as he stared at the boy wearing Captain America pajamas. Blue and red stars with the image of his shield in the center. He sensed the child's slight resistance, and gave Danny an assuring smirk as his lips held a line of warmth against the cuts at the corners, but his smile was bright and eyes gleamed with hope. The one thing Danny would need in the next few days to come. "You don't need to stand in the doorway. I'm not that intimating to talk too. I'm not a department store Santa," he said as his hand gestured the boy to enter the room.

Bucky guided the young boy towards the bedside, in slow, methodical steps; his combat boots thumped against the floor, as he reached the bed, and used his right leg to drag a chair to Danny. He released his grip on boy after giving him a reassuring squeeze with his metal finger and then he moved in hushed ghost-like strides to the window. He stuffed his gloved hands into the pockets of his frayed sweater.

He kept himself in a stoic stance, fighting to restore his humanness that HYDRA purged from him a lifetime. He felt unhinged with the concept of reason, but the sirens disturbed his soft thoughts. He became acutely aware of how much time had passed around, instead of moving to the bedside, he turned his intense glare of stark blue upon the window and tuned out everything around him. Silence descended over him. He wanted Danny to finally meet his hero face- to- face.

The boy finally spoke, his voice cracked at first, and he lightly coughed. "My name is Danny Richards, Captain Rogers." he managed and then he pulled out his chocolate bar, placing it over Steve's laden hand, watching it frail against the mattress. "I bought you this," he paused wheezing out a small, but strangled cough, which made Steve feel a tug on his will help make you feel better., because I know you're in pain."

"Thank you, Danny." Steve managed to smile against a faint grimace stifling over his lips. He angled his body mass into comfortable position, and reached an unopened plastic cup of apple juice. He pulled the silver cover up slightly, and handed it carefully to the boy. His shimmering blue eyes stared at him with an understanding gaze, as he took a long moment and stared at the pale skin and the small bone density of his new friend. He couldn't help, but show his concern for the child's welfare. "Here, Danny I want you to drink this, it will help ease your coughing."

"I'm fine, Captain Rogers," Danny said his tone low and straggled. He took the cup out of Steve's hand, his fingers were frail and nails had a bluish tinged. Steve looked at him with glistening eyes, the softness in his gaze made Danny feel stronger. He drew out a deep breath and decided to tell him about this condition. Fire left a trail along his throat, searing over his vocal cords, but he refused to complain. Instead, he took small sip of the juice and gathered enough courage to explain his condition to his hero. "My mother brought me in here when I was four, it wasn't supposed to last long, but after a few months my body never got better. She told me to never be afraid...To always think about Captain America and how strong he was when he fought for the little guys."

Bucky glanced over his shoulder, seemly paying attention to the conversation.

Danny sighed. He bit on his lower lip and rubbed his arm, trying to hide the distress welling inside his small frame. Steve placed his hand on his shoulder, easing the knots of tension twisting in his muscles. «After they operated on me and removed a few things were damaged. I got really sick and almost died. I fought, Captain Rogers. I fought every day. My blood is poisoned with a rare disease that can't be cured. They told me that I will be losing my left arm."

Steve felt his heart pinch. A cold, grim haze swelled into him; making him almost want to shed tears, unleash olden sorrow, anything to show Danny his true self, the kid from Brooklyn who always found a way to stand his ground against his illness. He refused to allow languish of grief build inside him. This boy, Danny Richards deserved to live a normal life without the sickness of his diseased blood cells dragging him closer to an early grave. He wanted to give the boy a chance to have freedom. This was unfair. This was condemning. He needed to raise the child's spirits and give him a glimpse of hope to break though the folds of darkness.

"Danny," Steve spoke in honeyed voice sounding gentle to the boy's ears. He felt wetness streak down his cheeks, but he ignored the pain churning in his veins. He looked at Danny with an honest face, and his lips pulled into a sincere smile that reached his eyes. "How would you like to hold the shield?"

Danny's blue eyes widen like saucers and a giddy smile played across his lips. "You mean I can touch your shield, Captain Rogers?" he asked in a voice laced with excitement. His eyes sparkling. "I can really touch the shield of our greatest war hero?"

Steve nodded in response, pulling the covers off his body, he eased himself off the mattress; towering over the boy, and interlocked his fingers with Danny's small hand. He wove a touch of warmth into the cold bones, and held on tight and felt the child's hand squeeze over his large fingers.

"Can you hold on a second, Captain Rogers?" Danny slipped his small hand out from Steve's clutch and moved towards Bucky standing in stupor in front of the window. He inched in slow and tentatively steps, and brushed his fingers over the metal plates. "Don't worry, Bucky. I didn't forget about you." he whispered close to the displaced assassin, pressing his weight cautiously against Bucky's side.

Bucky frowned, turning his head over his shoulder. He sighed with a disdained pitch ghosting over his tight lips and looked down at Danny's humble eyes meeting his dagger like blue embers burning with intensity underneath tresses of hair swathed over his temples. Panic gurgled in his mouth, unrestrained and timid, "Danny I..." he closed up his voice, and hung his head low, clenching his metal fist. His clamped his eyelids shut, blocking out the sunlight from his swimming vision.

Haunting images of faces sprawl behind his lids like filaments of weaved webs. Images of lifeless chains chained to metal poles outside a warehouse, each head of the victim penetrated a black dot in the forehead caused for his sniper scoped rifle. Blood oozing from Kevlar vest of Russian operatives lying on the floor. Shapes of men lying flat on shards of glass with marks of strangulation etched on their blue tinged necks. Screams of children wafting in falling snow and the stench of crackling embers saturating the cold air with thick smoke. Rose petals floating in puddles of murky red, with ripples formed by departed tears of heart ache and cold remorse.

His mind was damaged; memories twisting like tampered and frayed wires and electronic shock waves jolted in his skull. Blood was running cold, heart thudded against his chest and tears leaked under his lashes. He withdrew an alarming step back, shaking his head, and reopened his eyes, glaring out the window with threatening glower; his blue eyes became flares of molten steel and teeth gnashed. When he heard Steve's sluggish foot patterns echo in his ear; he raised his arm, stopping the super-soldier with a pleading expression twisting over his face.

"Get Danny away from me," he snarled menacingly at Steve, knowing that he was fighting to contain the raging beast of HYDRA inside his vessel of flesh and blood. "I don't want to hurt him, Steve."

"Danny?" Steve called out in a gentle voice, Danny backed away from Bucky with confusion written on his face. "Everything is going to be alright, son," he soothed, and rested his warm hand on the boy's shoulder, and gripped it firmly, "Bucky is just going through something right now, he is fighting like you are, Danny."

"Will he be okay?" Danny asked, swallowing as he stared up, and watched the face of his friend morph into a dangerous and monstrous semblance. He started back away slowly, but then froze when he noticed tears rolling down Bucky's sharpened cheekbones. "Bucky?" he asked weakly as he blinked and stared at the man in front of him shift into a thrashing and violent monster. His heart dropped into the pit of his stomach, and looked back at Steve with glistening eyes. "What's happening to him?"

Steve took Danny aside, and conveyed him closer to the bed; he didn't know how to explain to the details of Bucky's dehumanized, tortured and inhumane past. He sighed out a heavy breath, "Bucky isn't well, Danny," he whispered down to the boy. "Some bad people in his past did things that made him become a monster," He shielded his broad arms over Danny's frail chest, interlocking him into a safe hold. He knew that Bucky was fighting his Winter Soldier programming, but he had to keep Danny out of harm's way. Calling a nurse wasn't an option; he couldn't risk the safety of the lives in the hospital, not when the lethal, master assassin was having a melting down. He had to keep calm, and protect the boy. "He's trying to break free, Danny. He's trying to become a human again."

"Bucky is not a monster, Captain Rogers...He's my friend."

"He's my friend too, Danny," Steve replied in modest voice, moving closer to his propped up shield, he quickly swiped it from the bed frame, slid his free hand into the leather straps, and lowered his primacy defensive and offensive piece of weaponry just enough to form a barrier of the boy's chest. "Do you want to hold it with me, soldier?"

Silently, Danny nodded and he felt his small hand being placed under a strap, his knuckles grazed over the unadorned vibranium alloy. "Do you carry this with you all the time?" he asked rubbing the padding his fingers over the strap.

"It helps when I'm engaging dangerous conflict on the battlefield...Or on the freeway," Steve quipped back, intently watching Bucky storm into the bathroom, banging his left shoulder into the wall before the door slammed behind him. Lowering his shield down to the floor, Steve settled the boy gently on the edge of the bed. He cringed as the ear shattering cries wafting throughout out the room, the anguish of destructive and riving soul. He held his hand into a fist as his lashes sweep against skin, and eyes closed enough to leave traces of his pain undetectable in the pools of shimmering azure before he added, "Sometimes it even saves lives...Even the ones who don't want to be saved."

Danny was crying. Not because of his illness, but for Bucky.

"I want him to be okay!" he blurted.

"He will be, Danny," Steve promised in a pacifying voice, kneeling down on one knee, and he stroked his finger under the boy's eyes, collecting the salt encased tears, and wiping off his temples. "I want you to do something for me. I want you to be brave no matter how scary things be, never lose hope in yourself and in the people you care about," He narrowed his eyes down at his shield, looking at the silver star in the middle of the red and white rings. Then, he eased a tarnished chain off his neck, placing it over Danny's small head, easing it over the baseball cap. "I want you to hold on to these for a while, but be careful; they're old just like me."

Lowering his teary eyes, Danny stared, just stared at the metal plated dog tags with Steve's full name and rank number polished with age, "These are your dog tags from the war?"

"That's right," Steve nodded in return, giving him a tenderhearted smile, looking deeply into the boy's eyes, suddenly they were interrupted by a frizzled, middle-aged nurse standing in the doorway with a worried look shrouding over his pudgy face. "Madam," he acknowledged her presence with a curt of a nod.

"Danny," she called out, instantly the boy whipped his head around to meet her concerned stare. "What are you doing out of your room? You know it's not good for you condition."

Steve gave him a wink, and then he settled his virtuous crystal blue eyes on the older woman. "It's my fault, Madam. Danny wanted to see me, and I received clearance from another nurse for him to pay me a small visit. I was going to bring him back to the children's ward." he halted in his words, raking his hand over his golden locks, "I guess I lost track of time."

"This young boy has a terminal condition. We have staff monitoring him every hour." she explained with an empathetic voice ragging up her throat. "He is not allowed to roam the hallways, if you want to see him again, Steven Rogers, then you visit him in his room under my clearance." She held out her hand and spoke to the boy in a firm voice, "Come on, Danny,"

'Just a second, Martha," Danny replied back, he wrapped his small arms over the muscular span of Steve's ample shoulder and whispered, "Thank you, Captain Rogers."

"No, Danny," Steve countered back, resting his chin on Danny's jutting shoulder, knowing because of this humble and little boy he was gradually getting his best friend, James Barnes restored back. "Thank you."

He helped his little friend to his feet, and Danny lumbered back to the doorway, turned and looked at the bathroom door, "Tell, Bucky that his friend Danny Richards will see him soon," he said, taking the nurse's hand and walked out of the room, fiddling with the dog tags as proud smile beamed across his thinned face.

He helped his little friend to his feet, and Danny lumbered back to the doorway, turned and looked at the bathroom door, "Tell, Bucky that his friend Danny Richards will see him soon," he said, taking the nurse's hand and walked out of the room, fiddling with the dog tags as proud smile beamed across his thinned face.

* * *

A/N: A monster sized thank you to all the readers who reviewed, put this story on their favorite list and followed. Thank you guys, so much. I have a lot more planned out for this story, don't worry Danny will live.


End file.
